WALES needs to “grab” any inward investment opportunities that come its way with a package of support measures, says leading economist Kevin Gardiner.

Cardiff-born Mr Gardiner, who is managing director of Barclays Wealth and Investment Management, said Wales should also be more vocal in making its case as an inward investment location, and adds that there was no reason why local authority pension funds in Wales couldn’t be managed here.

Earlier this week Deloitte announced it is to create 100 international tax advisory roles in Cardiff, while First Minister Carwyn Jones said the city’s enterprise zone for financial and professional services has 3,000 potential jobs in the pipeline.

Mr Gardiner, who attended Glan Ely Comprehensive School in Cardiff before securing a bursary to study for his A-levels at Atlantic College, said he would “love to see” the Welsh economy generally doing a lot better.

He made his name as an economist with his analysis of the transformation of the Irish Republic in the 1990s – with his work coining the phrase “the Celtic Tiger”. Ireland’s prosperous ’90s saw significant cuts in business taxes and investment in skills, helping to entice a wave of blue-chip foreign direct investment into the country.

Mr Gardiner said: “One of the things in Ireland’s favour was that its government deliberately used fiscal powers to attract direct investment.

“I am not suggesting for an instant that the Welsh Government will ever be able to do what Ireland has done to its tax rates, but anything it is able to offer on that front would be very useful. However, it would need to be something tangible and not the exultation to say ‘come and invest in Cardiff’.

“Businesses are responsible to shareholders. And for big firms, particularly in the current climate, everything has to be transparent and visible. So to take a particular regional view you need to demonstrate for them [shareholders] objectively that it is in their interest and there are cost advantages.

“So when the new developments [office schemes] come on stream around Cardiff train station, if you were able to somehow offer location costs which are pretty competitive, and which actually give companies a cost advantage in coming down here, that might help.”

Mr Gardiner said there was potential for pension funds in Wales, particularly those of local authorities and other public sector organisations, to be managed by fund managers based in Wales – although stressing it would not be easy to displace existing fund managers based in London.

He said: “A lot of local authority pension funds, and pensions generally in Wales, are managed in London. The competitive edge which London has may not be that convincing even in the front office side of things.

“A fund manager’s performance is very varied and if you take a passive investment approach to investing pensions you have got as good a chance of doing that competitively in South Wales as anywhere else.

"But it mustn’t just be as good as that would only allow a default to the established provider... so you also have got to have a bit of a cost advantage.”

While Wales, on latest figures from UKTI, has seen a significantly improvement in securing foreign direct investment in relation to other parts of the UK, Mr Gardiner said that Wales could have a visibility issue.

He said: “Maybe we are bit reticent about selling ourselves and have a little bit of a tendency to be too quiet and inward-looking sometimes.

“I would love to see Cardiff and South Wales getting a bigger share of the waves of foreign direct investment globally, like that which helped transform the Irish economy and will transform any small regional economy that welcomes them [investors] with open arms.”

He added: “There is a bit of debate whether to grow your own businesses rather than attract it. I think this is missing the point, as you take whatever you can get. If you are offered a substantial direct investment from outside then just grab it.”

On Friday the ONS is expected to show that the recovery is continuing to gain momentum, when it publishes its first estimate for GDP for Q3 [third quarter] of this year.

Mr Gardiner said: “We are cautiously optimistic that the recovery in the UK will gather some momentum.

“We are expecting Friday’s figures to show 0.75% growth, which is what most people seem to be pencilling in.

“I do think there is recovery out there, but that doesn’t mean that people’s living standards are going to be transformed overnight.

"Unemployment is coming down painfully slowly... but we are moving in the right direction.”

Speaking to Cardiff Business Club on Monday night, chief executive of Barclays Antony Jenkins said a challenge for businesses was an increasingly saturated domestic marketplace, which meant growth would have to achieved in markets overseas.

However, Mr Gardiner said there would remain scope for domestic growth.

He said: “The UK population is projected to grow to between 70 to 75 million over the next 20 years and in itself that will give you a more vibrant domestic economy to aim for on the longer-term view So the UK may have one of the brighter growth prospects in Europe simply because there will be more people here who will have to be housed, clothed and fed and have to find work.

“So that’s eventually going to give you a reasonably decent growth rate.”

Mr Gardiner said he was excited by a new wave of investment across the economy in emerging and transformational technologies.

He added: “I think we are due for a pick up in capital spending and I am optimistic that some of these technological innovations are going to drive that.”

He said there were a number of perceived wisdoms about the UK economy that were incorrect.

He said: “One of the first is that we don’t make stuff in the UK. This is a huge exaggeration and we have, before we even get onto these new technologies in areas like nanotechnology and software, world-class UK manufacturers that are able to compete successfully in world markets.”